cladgrave
writer: John Smith
artist: Edmund Bagwell
Writer: Ellie Deville
Publisher: AD 2000/Rebellion
Publication date: 2011
I’ve been looking for a less obvious horror comic to end my Halloween season reading, and luckily this search led me to it cladgrave,writer John Smith and artist Edmund Bagwell First serialized story AD 2000 More than ten years ago. Recommended to me by several friends I know AD 2000 The output is good, cladgrave is a down-to-earth yet terrifying slow-burn comic that haunts you with a terrifying mix of difficult realities and strange encounters.
The gist of the story is that Sean Holt was released from a juvenile prison after serving eight months for arson. During the summer heat wave, he returned to his family at Ravenglade Hall, but its sign was vandalized and changed to “Cradle Grave Hall”. Since then, Sean has struggled to reintegrate into a run-down community that has been ignored or outright ignored by wider society. There’s a strike and no one is picking up trash. Police did not respond after receiving the call. Young people like Sean are in and out of jail.
This is a horror comic based on an already scary real world. There’s a monster and some truly shocking body horror in this book, but it’s all equally aimed at the horror of a community abandoned by those in power. From the gritty visuals to the characters’ mannerisms, the book’s reality is represented extremely well, and that’s a credit to the creative team.
Bagwell’s comic achieves a perfect level of realism, but it also divides the page in a way that highlights themes, from claustrophobia to full-on unease. The result is a book that’s a heavy read early on as the viewer becomes accustomed to the world and characters, then accelerates to terrifying speed as it reaches its shocking and bizarre conclusion.
Smith’s script is both patient and poignant. The entire first act of the book is dominated by the horrors of Sean’s daily life. There’s no hint of body horror for a long time, and the book is all the better for it. This decision makes the fantastical horror that does arrive feel like a given. There’s also a disorienting element to the script here cladgrave Brilliantly. I found that as I read, I was as scared of Sean dealing with the threat of a local drug dealer as I was of the monster. I don’t quite know what’s going to happen next, but I know that any level of horror is going to happen.
Indeed, this is a very unpredictable comic, at least for me. The nature of what’s going on beneath the surface is revealed straight away at about 2/3 of a second, and I didn’t even see it coming. Still, it feels satisfying, filled with gruesome visuals and metaphorical implications, serving as a stand-in for the disproportionate impact drug addiction has on the disenfranchised and forgotten.
Overall, I found cladgrave Become an excellent read. I’ve been looking for a less obvious comic this Halloween season, and I certainly found it here, in a book that wants you to think about how decay, despair, and depravity can slowly creep in, changing what you’re willing to do Things and things you want to do.
Cradlegrave is currently available in the 2000AD store.
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